Cellular telephones, smartphones and other portable telecommunications devices often include at least one imaging device to take pictures of objects and other patterns of pixels. Images are taken upon command by the user.
The images can be used for a variety of different purposes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,807,428 (Morgan), entitled navigation of mobile devices, describes a method for navigation of a mobile device including determining spatial information of at least one beacon detected in an image relative to the image, the image being an image of the beacon within at least part of an environment surrounding the mobile device, and determining a position of the mobile device based on the spatial information. This latter step entails encoded visual information of the beacon and at least two indicators of the beacon detectable only in a restricted wavelength image. The two indicators are located on either side of the encoded visual information.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,958,601 (Lin) entitled optical navigation method and device using same, describes an optical navigation method, which includes sequentially obtaining three images, choosing a main reference block in one image, comparing the main reference block and a another image by block matching comparison to determine a first motion vector, resizing the main reference block according to the first motion vector to generate an ancillary reference block having a size smaller than the main reference block, and comparing the ancillary reference block and yet another image by block matching comparison to determine a second motion vector.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,983,773 (Hamilton, II et al.) entitled pictorial navigation, describes methods, systems and program products for providing pictorial information relevant to a geographic location. In the method, a characteristic relevant to a geographic location is selected, a pictorial image database is searched for images having an embedded tag associated with the characteristic, and in response to this searching, at least one image file is retrieved from the database that has an embedded tag correlated to the geographic location characteristic. A physical appearance or an attribute of the location is visually depicted. Characteristics of the at least one image file are analyzed and preferred image data is selected from the at least one image file and formatted for presentation. The formatted image data is associated with the geographic location, and presented in association with the geographic location. Associated image data may indicate a distance and direction from a geographic location. Routing system applications are enabled to present pictorial information with navigation route points.
U.S. Pat. Appln. Publ. No. 20140022394 (Bae et al.) describes a method for tracking an object including obtaining an image captured by a camera, setting a plurality of patterns having various sizes, according to a distance from a horizon in the image to a plurality of pixels in the image, extracting an object matching one of the plurality of patterns having various sizes, while scanning the image using the plurality of patterns having various sizes, and displaying information about a position of the extracted object in the image.